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UNDER PRESSURE
by Kathy Brandt
Signet, June 2006
272 pages
$6.99
ISBN: 0451218787


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Hannah Sampson is a detective in the police department of Tortola, British Virgin Islands. Previously she worked homicide in Denver. She left the pressures of the big city and relocated to the Islands where she works drugs, homicide, wherever she is needed. And she is the department's only trained underwater investigator.

On a Saturday morning she and one of the new members of the force are in the police boat preparing for a training dive. Suddenly, a small plane which has just taken off from the airport nosedives into the waters not 100 yards from their boat. Hannah and Jimmy quickly don their gear and head for the plane. Three people are in the doorway, trying to exit; just as they enter the water the plane submerges. Hannah and Jimmy are on their way to meet the plane on the bottom.

Several passengers are rescued, including a nine-year old boy, who was found in the bathroom by Hannah. When they are topside he clings to Hannah and doesn't want to leave her. She promises to see him at the hospital. Unfortunately, Simon's father doesn't make it.

When the plane is raised and the investigators start examining it, they discover drugs in the co-pilot's bag and a loaded gun stuffed down behind a seat. Both Hannah's partner, Stark and the airline accident investigator are convinced the plane was brought down intentionally. However there are still tests to run.

In the meantime, there is a hurricane headed for the Islands, an obnoxious US Senator trying to intimidate everyone he comes into contact with, an attempted theft at the warehouse where the plane is stored and an assault on a homeless man who happened to wander into the warehouse. The pressures definitely build; including those on the home front as Hannah and O'Brien, her lover, quarrel and Hannah temporarily takes Simon until his only relative, an aunt, can be notified.

This is the fourth book in the series. The author is a certified diver and she and her husband have been diving in the islands for years. Even though I know nothing about the subject, the underwater aspect rang true to me. All of the characters are realistic, from the islanders to the police to the bad guys. Brandt knows how to build suspense and keeps the reader guessing until the last line of the last page -- and I am ready for the next book.

Reviewed by Lorraine Gelly, June 2006

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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